When talking about Hunan people, talk about chili peppers. When talking about Hunan people, everyone will think of chili peppers. If "barbarism" is a main feature of Hunan people's spiritual temperament and personality, then "spicy" is a main flavor of Hunan people's diet. When asked about a northerner working in Hunan about his feelings about Hunan cuisine, he said that Hunan has two most famous dishes, one is red pepper stir-fried with green chili pepper, and the other is green chili pepper stir-fried with red chili pepper. Although this friend was joking, he did point out the characteristics of authentic Hunan cuisine: spicy. For those who don’t eat chili peppers, the most troublesome thing when visiting Hunan is eating. On the dinner table, "the mountains and rivers of the motherland are all red", which is so spicy that their tongues stand straight, their throats are on fire, their stomachs cramp, and they sweat all over their bodies. People who have experienced the spiciness of Hunan cuisine specially asked the chef not to add chili peppers before the dinner, but the dishes served are still spicy - Hunan chefs cannot cook without adding chili peppers. People in Hunan cannot eat without chili. People in Hunan are greedy for chili peppers, just like the flower monk in "Water Margin" who is greedy for wine and meat. If he doesn't eat chili peppers for a day, he will "fade out of his mouth." A lovely fellow from Hunan went to Tianjin on a business trip and didn't eat chili peppers for a week, which became unbearable. One day for breakfast, I saw a kind of fried fish for sale in the hotel restaurant. It was red and seemed to be fried with red pepper powder. The fellow was overjoyed and immediately bought a plate, brought it to the table and took a bite. He was so angry that he held the plate and asked the waiter: "Why is this fish sweet? Why is it not spicy at all?" The waiter was so angry that he was two feet tall. The monk was confused. There is also a fellow from Shaoyang, Hunan who went to Beijing for the first time on a business trip. He went to Quanjude to eat roast duck, but was disappointed. He said to a friend: "Can you eat duck without pepper? Peking roast duck is not half as delicious as our Shaoyang spicy plasma duck!" It can be seen that Hunan people I really like chili peppers. Hunan people are also very good at eating chili peppers, which is unparalleled in the world! Therefore, there is a saying that "Sichuan people are not afraid of spicy food, Guizhou people are not afraid of spicy food, and Hunan people are not afraid of spicy food." What is intriguing is that Hunanese eat chili the most, but the first people in China to taste the taste of chili were not the Hunanese, but the people from Jiangsu and Zhejiang who currently eat the least chili. Chili pepper is native to Central and South America. It was originally the most important condiment for Indians. Around the end of the 15th century, it was introduced to Europe by the Spanish. At the end of the 16th century, chili pepper was introduced to China and was named "Pan Chili". At first, peppers were introduced and cultivated by the Chinese as an ornamental flower. Chen, a native of Hangzhou in the late Ming Dynasty and early Qing Dynasty, wrote "Hua Jing" and said that at that time people in Jiangsu and Zhejiang ground chili into "very fine" powder and consumed it as "pepper". In fact, it was similar to the dry chili powder eaten by Hunan people today. By the Qianlong period of the Qing Dynasty, peppers had been widely eaten as a vegetable. The third chapter of "Dream of Red Mansions" describes when Jia Mu introduced Wang Xifeng to Lin Daiyu and said: "You don't recognize him: he is a famous spicy guy here. The so-called 'Lazi' in Nanjing, you just call him 'Feng Lazi'." It can be seen that chili peppers were already quite famous in Jiangsu and Zhejiang at that time. Chili pepper is an "imported product", and it is not surprising that people from coastal Jiangsu and Zhejiang are the first to taste it. The strange thing is that people in Jiangsu and Zhejiang are now disgusted by spicy food and avoid it, while Hunan people who try it later become "spicy kings". Interestingly, Hunan people are not only fond of spicy food, they also like to eat betel nuts. Especially people from Xiangtan, Hunan, love betel nut as much as their lives. Betel nut is originally produced in tropical areas and is not produced in Hunan, but Xiangtan has become a famous betel nut city in the country. The stimulation of betel nut is as strong as that of chili pepper. If you are not used to eating it, your tongue will feel numb, your throat will be blocked, and your heartbeat will increase. But the people in Xiangtan enjoyed it like glutinous rice and chewed it with relish from morning to night. Some good people wrote verses to ridicule Xiangtan people: "Xiangtan people are 'treasures' (Hunan dialect, meaning fool), chewing a handful of grass." But Xiangtan people don't care, go their own way, and the city's betel nut sales are still huge. amazing. It can be seen that the Hunan people's food tradition is extremely open and "strong". Mr. Wang Li, a famous Chinese linguist, once said: "The appeal of chili pepper lies in its spiciness, not its temptation. Moreover, it is so stimulating that it feels like it has pierced your tongue as soon as it is imported. It is not like the chronic irritation of coffee. Just because of this To put it bluntly, it has the power of being "strong". Some people attribute the Hunan people's love for revolution to chili pepper. "The spiritual temperament and personality characteristics of Hunan people are indeed related to chili pepper. People who like to eat spicy food generally have a strong temperament. Most northerners don't eat peppers, but they like to eat garlic and green onions. This "affinity" is more psychological and temperamental than just physical. People in Jiangsu and Zhejiang seem to lack this "affinity", so they were the first to introduce edible chili peppers, but in the end they rejected it and gave it to people from Hunan, Sichuan and other places. It's like a rabbit playing with a meat ball. Because it doesn't eat meat by nature, it finally gives it to the tiger. Nowadays, the attitude of people in Jiangsu and Zhejiang towards chili peppers can be seen in a saying from Shanghainese: "If you know your taste, please eat spicy fire sauce!" It is like going up a mountain of knives and going down a sea of ??fire. . But when the Hunan people heard this sentence, they were a little baffled and didn't know whether to laugh or cry! --What? I don’t know what’s interesting, but there is still delicious food to eat, which is a dream! In the early 1950s, Zhou Zuoren published an article called "Eating Green Peppers", in which he said: "As for spicy peppers (peppers), what an amazing name it is, it can really express his virtue. It is like fire. It burns you, and those who are not used to it feel that the taste has really entered the painful area. "Chili is the food of the strong and the fierce. The pleasure gained from eating chili peppers is pleasure transformed from pain.